Food - Food
is energy plus elements essential for life. All living things are bags of
chemicals. Introduced other chemicals-could benefit the bags -food -or disrupt
the bags --poisons. More on the topic: Food is any substance that
provides energy and elements essential for life. Food is fuel. Tree food is
sugar. The chlorophyll traps the energy of the sun in a molecule of carbon
dioxide and water-glucose. Tree food is carbohydrate; carbon, hydrogen, and
oxygen combined to form many types of sugars and sugar-based substances.
Nutritious food includes the proper amounts of essential elements and vitamins
that are necessary for a healthy living condition. Fertilizers provide some
elements essential for life. Planted trees usually require fertilizers. But,
fertilizers do not provide an energy source for trees! The energy still comes
from the sun and it is held in the sugar molecule. It is not so important to
know the words, but it is important to know the natural processes. More harm
has been done to trees in the name of feeding than with most other injurious
actions. We want to make trees like people. If you love someone who is sick
or starving, you give them food. So, food is not given to trees, that is the
sad part of the story. So, here the words we use are important when they
result in harm and not help. When a tree is sick or stressed, its energy
reserves are usually low. Trees can only store energy in living cells. The
amount of energy reserves is then directly related to the amount of healthy
living cells in wood and inner bark. When elements are added to the soil or
injected into the tree, the elements stimulate the natural biological processes
to increase their rate. To do this, energy is required. The energy can only
come from stored reserves or from new substances produced by photosynthesis.
What all this means is that the tree does speed up its normal activities. But,
is this not good for a sick tree? In some cases it may be, so long as the
energy required to operate all processes is sufficient. But, when the natural
processes operate faster than energy can be supplied, then problems start.
Large leaves form. Long new shoots form. Then the leaves and shoots begin to
die. This scene has been seen by many people who have fertilized a tree
planted early in the spring. Everything looks very fine, until all the leaves
come out. Then they die. How could this happen, people think, when the tree
grew so fast and the leaves grew so large. The rapid growth rate and the large
leaves were part of the problem. There was little or no energy left to make
new wood and bark, and no energy left to supply the living cells in the trunk
and roots. The living cells in the trunk and roots are absolutely dependent on
the leaves for their energy. A major problem with many planted trees is that
they grow too fast. We think that rapid growth means a healthy tree. This is
not so! I hope the day will come when we can give trees food. Until that
time, use fertilizers with great care, and do not confuse them with tree food.

Bottom line on elements verses nutrients.
Elements are too often mistakenly called “nutrients”. To make this clear,
please allow me to share this with you. Essential elements. Look at your
chart of Atomic Properties of elements. (Not the Atomic Properties of
nutrients) That’s where you will find your elements. Look at
mycorrhizae. Is it fungus or is it tree? YES, mycorrhizae is a composite
structure made up of root and fungus tissues.

But if you have the fungus and no tree, do
you have mycorrhizae? NO, you do not have the composite structure made up of
root and fungus tissues. You only have fungus.

If you have a bag of fungi to place on the
soil, to establish mycorrhizae, do you have mycorrhizae in the bag? NO

Take a lichen, is it algae or fungus?
YES (People do not like these kinds of answers)

But if you have a bag of algae, do you have
lichens. NO

If you have a nutrient, is it an element or
energy? YES

If you have a bag of elements do you have a
nutrient? NO

Do you have a bag of food? NO

You say oh, word games?

With respect: Consider poor Joe who liked
alcohol. Drank methanol rather than ethanol. He then quickly learned, as his
brain got burned. That words, are important after all.